March 4 - Shares in Banijay Group rose nearly 6% on Wednesday after the French entertainment firm announced a deal late Tuesday to merge its production operations with All3Media, owned by investment firm RedBird IMI.
The transaction, which is expected to close by fall 2026, aims to establish one of Europe's largest multimedia production groups, managing franchises such as "Peaky Blinders", "Big Brother", "The Traitors", and "MasterChef", as the companies seek to scale their operations against competition from streaming giants.
* Both parties will hold 50% of the combined entity, whichwill retain the Banijay name * All3Media owner RedBird IMI will roll-over its entirestake in All3Media into the new combined entity * "The financial impact would be significant", a DeutscheBank analyst said in a note * The combined entity is projected to generate pro formarevenues exceeding 4.4 billion euros ($5.1 billion) and anadjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation andamortization (EBITDA) of 690 million euros for 2024 * According to Deutsche Bank, the deal would lift BanijayGroup's total pro forma revenues for 2024 to 7.4 billion euros,representing a 16% increase, while pushing its adjusted EBITDAup 9% to 1.5 billion euro
($1 = 0.8596 euros)
(Reporting by Leo Marchandon in Gdansk; Editing by Matt Scuffham)
